


A Devil reborn

by JoltikBlue



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Body Horror, Character Death, Gen, Gore, Horror, Not Canon Compliant, Psychological Horror, SnK 119
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-12 00:48:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19937272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoltikBlue/pseuds/JoltikBlue
Summary: PLEASE, IF YOU SEE THIS WORK OR ANY OF MY OTHER WORKS ON FANFIC POCKET ARCHIVE LIBRARY OR ANY OTHER APPS, THEN THEY ARE STOLEN! I DID NOT CONSENT TO THIS BEING SEEN ON ANYTHING OTHER THAN AO3. PLEASE GO TO MY AO3 ACCOUNT IF YOU WANT TO READ THIS FIC! THANK YOU.Eren Yeager has become a monster. The Devil incarnate. The enemy of the world.And you only need to look at his titan to realise this.MAJOR MANGA SPOILERS!





	A Devil reborn

**Author's Note:**

> Major manga spoilers; wouldn't recommend reading if you watch the anime only.  
> This was a little idea I had the other day after the events in 119. I love the look of the Attack Titan, but I always thought it would be cool if he changed his appearance depending on what other Titans he had eaten.
> 
> So, basically a monster-horror dump.

Zeke was in pain. 

As Eren’s head rolled to a stop, inches from his fingers, he knew then that all the physical agony in the world couldn’t beat the pain he felt in his heart.  
His little brother was dead. And with him, the hope of a new world.

With trembling arms, he heaved himself forward. Someone was screaming; a long, wailing howl of despair that rang out in the now deadly silence. As his fingers brushed Eren’s head, he realised it was he who was screaming; mouth open wide like a banshee.  
Everything around him had faded into the dust. His focus was only on Eren. His head was still warm, still spilling blood like an overfilled cup of wine. Slowly, he turned the head in his grasp, gripping long locks harshly to try and prevent the shaking in his arms. His tear-filled eyes met cold ones; still vibrant and green and glassy, not yet misted over with death.

It was too much.

He screamed. Clutching the head close to his chest, trying to hunch over it in a protective embrace, he let his tears fall. His ruined torso shook with his sobs, blood beginning to pool around him as the steam began to slow; no longer having the will to continue and heal himself. Only death could release him from this hell.

Across the pavilion Gabi had crumpled into a shocked heap, her arms still wrapped around the gun in a death-grip. The gun that had been used to kill Mankind’s enemy.  
On the roof, Jean and Connie had seen everything. They had half-fallen onto the rooftop in a stunned silence, not believing what they had seen. Jean had fallen to his knees, head bowed as he tried to hide his tears that pattered onto the terracotta tiles. Connie remained standing, his wilting posture making him sway slightly. Tears began to fill his eyes and obscure his vision; and although he had vowed a few days earlier to “Kill that bastard.”, his mind only wandered to the youthful boy he had lived with at the training camp. A boy that would tease him and muss his hair and yell passionately about life beyond the walls. He slowly drew his eyes up to the two figure darting round the Cart Titan; Mikasa and Armin. Still blissfully unaware at the horror beneath them.  Oh God.  He brought a hand up to his mouth to hide his choked sobs. They needed to know. He had to tell them. They couldn’t  see  the head…  
A violent hiss startled him out of his thoughts, as within the street below him a large plume of steam was released. His grip tightened around his gun.

The colossal figure of the Armoured Titan, unmoving since he had fallen into a crumpled pile like a mass of boulders, let out a burst of steam from his nape. A shadowed figure; Reiner, with tendrils of muscle still splitting from his face emerged. To Connie’s surprise, he had tears running down his face, expression lax and eyes glued to the screaming man by the Beast Titan’s corpse. Connie’s arm tensed as his head turned up to him and Jean, but the pleading look in his eyes made him hesitate.  
Clumsily, Reiner began to climb down his Titan and took wobbling steps towards the steaming form of Falco’s Titan. He took no further heed of Connie and Jean and instead weaved his way down the street, movements uncertain.

“Wha-… How- do we-…?”  
Connie turned back to Jean who had leaned back to stare up at the sky, although his eyes remained vacant. Tear tracks cut lines through the dust and grime on his cheeks.  
The wailing continued and both of them watched mournfully as Zeke tried to crawl towards Eren’s body, head still grasped to his chest. A trail of blood was smeared behind him.  
The girl who had decapitated Eren with a gun more suited for blasting holes through stone walls remained sitting there. She looked familiar, messy ponytail in tatters around her thin shoulders.

Then another figure darted forwards out into the open. It was Reiner, a limp figure of a boy held under one of his arms. He was charging in a determined gait, heading straight towards the girl. Before Connie and Jean could fumble for their guns he had scooped her up under his other arm and disappeared into an alley on the far side. 

“Dammit…” Jean lowered his gun, not even having the energy to feel frustrated at his lack of movements. He forced his heavy legs to heave himself to his feet, giving a baleful glance at Connie.  
“We should go after him. He’s still a danger.”  
“…Yeah…” Connie’s eyes were still lingering on the figures of Zeke and Eren.  
“…But we should also contain Zeke.”  
“…Yeah…”

They dropped down next to Zeke who had reached the sprawled body of Eren. His face was a mess of blood and tears, even now he was still keening with grief and pain. With clumsy movements he was trying to pull the collar of Eren’s shirt, trying desperately to reconnect the stump of Eren’s neck with his bloodied head. Connie turned his head away from the pitiful scene, anger broiling in the pit of his stomach. He hated Zeke with every fibre of his being. For his family. For his comrades. For his friends. And here he was; writhing weakly on the ground and holding Eren’s head in his dirty, murderous hands. He quelled the urge to stamp on Zeke’s fingers.

“Zeke Yeager…” Jean’s voice shook and he clenched his hand into a fist, nails cutting into his palm. “You have failed. You have killed hundreds of innocents, all for your insane plan of euthanization.” He inhaled sharply, Zeke ignoring his words to continue to try and fit Eren’s head to his neck. “Just-“ Zeke sobbed over his words. Death permeated the air.  
“…Just-“ Zeke was still not listing, pawing at Eren’s body.  
“-Just-“ The whimpering was chilling him to the bone, bile rising in his throat as he stared down at this seemingly heartless killer in a cold, enraged fascination.  
Before he had realised what he was doing, he had levelled his gun at the man’s head which burst into a mess of blood, bone and brain. A loud crack resonated throughout the square, the smoke from his gun mixing with the vapour of the Beast Titan.  
Zeke slumped forward, a halo of red sprayed onto the cobblestones around his head. Or what was left of it.  
“Jesus, Jean…”  
Why had he done it? Jean blinked, feeling detatched and empty. Had he done it as a precaution? Had he let his anger overtake him momentarily? Anger that this man had so carelessly taken away the lives of his friends and Eren’s sanity? Or… maybe he had just wanted to put the man out of his miserable existence. He couldn’t be sure.  
He emptied another bullet into Zeke’s spine without a word, just making sure the bastard was actually dead. Then he put a hand onto Connie’s shoulder, shaking the man gently out of his stupor.  
“C’mon. Lets catch Reiner before he does any more damage. If we can do it quickly, then maybe we can meet Mikasa and Armin before they see this mess…”

The two men aimed their ODM gear and disappeared into the growing darkness of the alleyway.

The empty square became near silent, the faint whistling of the wind echoing eerily around the merciless buildings. The steam and smoke had thickened into a veil that obscured the pavilion entirely, the Beast Titan now only a mound of bones and decaying fur. Despite the shifting movements of the smoke, the atmosphere felt still and dead. The late afternoon light was too weak to pierce through the murkiness of the steam.

A large shadow fell over the unmoving forms of the Yeager brothers. A pure Titan began to materialise out of the gloom, lean and skeletal. It had moved slowly throughout Shiganshina, shuffling forward in a hunched, staggering gait, absurdly long arms grazing the ground. Two pale eyes, almost like fish eyes, peered emotionlessly at them and began to stoop. It knelt before them, lifting its arms slowly and its jagged nails began to dig into its chest, pulling apart the skin with relative ease. It’s stomach was too small and concave compared to the Titan that had healed Zeke with its body so instead it ripped apart its ribcage. Blood lazily poured from the gaping hole, ribs poking this way and that like the legs of a spider. A dark heart beat steadily as it hunched over the bodies.

Now extending its arm, the effort making it’s vertebrae twist and buckle under its paper skin, it carefully grasped the brothers within its hand and raised them to its chest. Their limbs twisted together, clothes now black with blood.

The hand placed them gently within the steaming abyss. And all was quiet once again within the pavilion.

* * *

An endless desert stretched before Eren. Full of serene crags and dunes, it had been turned into a stunning sea of silver and blue as it reflected the pale stars high above. An ethereal trail of cerulean light sifted it’s way through the heavens, converging high above Eren and bathing him in a cold glow. Tendrils of light reached down above him and caressed his shoulders, slipping into the corners of his eyes and the ragged scar on his neck. Nimble fingers, stained pink with old blood, were softly pulling the skin together and stitching pure threads of muscle together with a needle. Ymir, pale blonde hair bowed to hide her face continued to fix him without a word.  
Not that Eren minded. He was staring listlessly into the sky above him, mouth slightly agape as he lost himself in the light of the Founding Titan. He was naked, knees drawn up to his chest in a rather vulnerable posture and Shifter lines arcing down from the back of his neck and under his eyes. There was no longer the smell of blood and bitter smoke, no longer the sound of screaming and the mutterings of his ancestors in his head. Just serene peacefulness.  
Zeke was propped up against his back, golden hair mussed and sticky with dried blood. Despite the fact that his head had been blown open, or as Eren had been told by Zeke’s soft admission, he looked reasonably unharmed. Every once in awhile, his hand would reach back and squeeze Eren’s arm in reassurance. Vaguely Eren remembered Zeke had knelt in front of him before he had grown too weak to stand, pale blue eyes giving him an unspoken apology. That he was sorry for failing him. It was hard to remember through, he felt as though he was stuck in a dream.  
Now, Zeke sat almost motionlessly. Allowing Ymir to take raw strands of muscle and ligaments from his opened arm to stitch Eren’s neck with. It wasn’t going to be a clean job; the replacement muscles were bulging and ugly, twisting in and out of another. But Ymir had promised him that it would be enough to keep him alive when he resurfaced back into reality.

“Eren…” Zeke’s voice cracked, head drooping slightly which caused his hair to tickle the back of Eren’s neck.

“I-… I wish that we had been true brothers. That things… could’ve been different.”

Eren didn’t know how to feel about Zeke. The man was a monster. But then, he guessed, so was he. And having Grisha’s memories in his head had changed how he had seen him. He remembered an unloved little boy who had only wanted to please his parents. Who had felt confused and lost in a world that told him conflicting ideals to strive for. He remembered the despairing expression on Zeke’s face as he pointed at his parents, condemning them to Paradis and realising that his choice to save himself and his grandparents had subjected himself to a lifetime of suspicion and self-hatred.  
Maybe they would talk about it when he died again. After all, in Ymir’s purgatory all Titan Shifters drifted eternally.  
It wasn’t a hell though. Just a relief.

Realising he hadn’t replied, Eren chose to give a soft hum. He was beginning to feel a tingling sensation back into the tips of his fingers and lifted his hand, satisfied with the light flexing he could now do. Apparently the nervous system was fully re-connected.

“When you get back, you should be able to use the full power of the Founding Titan.” Ymir’s voice was tender and careful. She sounded younger than she looked and full of innocent charm.  
“Zeke’s blood and muscle is now a physical part of you. Titan cells are also self-replenishing so this should be a permanent change.”

“Good luck little brother.” Zeke gave a low chuckle, raising both his arms in a mocking gesture to the universe. “Looks like you're a God now.”

“A terrible, unforgivable God.” He now held the fate of the world in his palm, apprehension rolling around his stomach. He leant back with a sigh, head resting on Zeke’s shoulder and stared deeply into the night.

“Don’t come back until you’ve finished the job.”

“Yeah.” He didn’t know how Zeke would react when he realised that Eren’s true plan wouldn’t be euthanization. It wouldn’t matter though, they would both be dead.

Eren closed his eyes and prepared to go back to Hell.

* * *

Floch had fallen from what had felt like a thousand meters from the top of the wall. Pieck’s surprise attack had hit him hard, a bullet ripping through his calf and sending him tumbling off the edge of the wall, agony shooting through his leg. He had screamed, his twisted and battered ODM gear barely managing to stop his fall once he neared the bottom. His grappling hooks had kept being pulled from the wall as Floch was spinning head over heels, until finally, as a divine act of mercy, they held him only metres from the unyielding floor. He had then collapsed into a heap, dazed.  
After a few minutes he felt a laugh bubble past his lips, relief or shock he wasn’t sure.  
He was screwed. Of this he was sure. After seeing the Beast Titan plummet from the wall, disappearing behind a mass of buildings, he had begun to pick his way back towards Zeke. It was slow, exhausting work; his right ankle was fucked and his ODM gear was destroyed beyond repair, steel cables a mess of stinging wire and gas canister empty.  
He picked up the pace though when he heard Zeke’s scream and flashes of lighting shook the city. The silence that followed it was worse though. Despite hearing the faint screams of people and the roars of Titan’s they remained distant and unreal. And the silence that greeted him when he reached the square was even more unsettling.  
Steam drifted heavily although it was beginning to dissipate. He was certain that this had been where the Beast Titan had fallen; the smoke being evidence enough as it is. However - there was no body.

“I guess Zeke must’ve moved on.” He didn’t want to think about the other possibility, that Zeke may have been truly defeated and his body had wasted away to nothing. That didn’t seem possible. There was no way that piece of crap would’ve been killed so quickly. He was terror incarnate, the feeling Floch had felt on that suicide charge years ago had been akin to wonder and fear, looking up at the figure of a cruel god as rocks rained down from above.  
He was too tough to be killed by someone as  dopey  as Pieck.  
Too lost in his musings, he failed to notice the mound of flesh ahead of him, partly obscured and deathly still until he was nearly on top of it.  
He stopped, iris’s shrinking to pinpricks and breathing momentarily halting. It was a pure Titan, huddled into a ball on it’s knees and long arms extended far out in front of it as if it was praying. It’s eyes were bulbous and were placed slightly to the side of it’s face so that they stuck out like a fish’s. Faded grey pupils watched Floch silently, twitching and spinning.

“Yeeaarghh!!” Floch fell back with a yelp and tried to crawl backwards, arms flailing and legs kicking maniacally. Tears had begun to pour out of his eyes already and he distantly realised he was babbling  “Please don’t kill me please I donwanna die!” 

The Pure Titan just watched. Uninterested.

By the time his back hit one of the crumbling walls of a house on the far side of the square, he had gathered enough of his wits to realise that it wasn’t dangerous. His face was running with tears and snot and he attempted to use the wall to pull himself up with shaking fingers. Scrabbling fingers pulled loose a stone which clattered to the floor.  
Was it injured? Had Zeke ordered it to remain there? Maybe it was protecting Zeke, keeping his body hidden whilst he healed.

“Zeke?” His voice wavered as he took a cautious step forward, stone now clutched in his hand; a pitiful defence. He tried lobbing it at the creature, it created a small bleeding cut beneath its cheek but did nothing more. When he was mere metres away, contemplating crawling between its mass of limbs to pull free Zeke, it gave a wet gurgle.  
A thin trail of blood began to stream out of its mouth. With a shudder its eyes rolled to the back of its head and smoke began to curl away from the skin as it finally died.

Floch watched in disbelief as the skin on the back of its nape tore like paper. And Eren emerged in a smokey haze of cartilage and blood.

He was covered in gore; skin and clothes stained a fresh scarlet in which only part of it evaporated as Titan blood. His head was bowed low, blood streaming off his long strands of hair in small, dripping waterfalls. He lifted a leg unsteadily to pull himself free, the tendons on his hand flexing with the effort of gripping the Titan’s skin. And when he finally raised his head, Floch could see his stunning green eyes, round and slightly glazed over. They met his own.

“Ah. Floch. How long have you been there?”

A incomprehensible mumbling fell from Floch’s mouth, his skin paling to a sickly white.

“Oh, ok. Well, if you don’t mind, I gotta go. Best if you step back.”

“…You-“ Floch found his voice, and although he was shaking crazily he attempted to stand up a bit taller, fist over his heart in a military salute. “I live to carry out your orders sir. I pledge you my undying loyalty to beat back those Marleyan devils!” It was a passionate declaration, his chest heaved with pride as he looked up at the man he would sacrifice everything for.

Eren hesitated. An unknown emotion passed over his face briefly, eyes falling into a sad, downtrodden look. He looked back down at his hands.  
“…Huh. Marleyan devils…” 

When he raised his head again, something fierce burned within his eyes. Floch then noticed his neck. Although it was difficult to make out through the dark blood, there was a mess of jagged skin and muscle that drew across his neck in a line. Like the markings left by a hangman’s noose.

“Tell me Floch. What is your dream?”

That made Floch falter. He stuttered for a moment, trying to maintain a confident composure.

“To win this war… To destroy our enemies. To destroy Marley!”

“You want revenge?”

“Yes.” Floch’s mouth turned into a snarl. “I want to make them pay. Feed them to the very Titans they created.”

Eren tilted his head, eyes narrowing coldly. “You know. I had a similar anger towards the Titans when I was younger. It was all I thought about. It consumed me. But that was the naive attitude of an idiot boy.”

“Uhh…” Floch’s mouth turned dry. Was Eren doubting his dedication? He wouldn’t be the first person to mistake him for a coward.

“I saw the world as it is. I grew up. My dream became a vile job I had to do for the sake of humanity. And you’re an adult now too. After all you’ve seen, have your perceptions not weakened?”

“No. They have instead grown stronger.” Floch jutted his jaw forward, a bloodthirsty smirk lighting up his features. “I am ready to fight, Eren. I will fight for you.”

Eren paused, eyes finally becoming blank and empty. He drew himself up and surveyed the square with a resigned sigh. When he looked down at Floch again, something within him had been made up.

“Actually Floch. Can you come closer please? I need you to do something.” 

Floch gave him a genuine smile, eyes lighting up at the prospect of being trusted by his hero. As he limped closer, Eren extended his left arm down towards him.  
As Floch raised his own arm to take his, Eren hastily brought his right hand to his mouth and bit down harshly. 

Everything exploded into a flurry of bright light.

* * *

Pale golden lightning arced down from the sky, striking the edge of Shiganshina near the city’s exit. Soldiers; both Marleyan and Paradis alike, ducked for cover as a thunderous crack rang throughout the streets, reverberating through their very bones. The wind blew in a tremendous gust away from the epicentre, dissipating the steam of rotting Titans and even the clouds shuddered from the force.

Mikasa lifted her head up from her arms, long streams of tears still falling from her eyes. She had been sitting in a hunched position, trying to hide her shaking cries into her sleeves which were becoming sodden with tears.  
Jean and Connie had lost Reiner in the alleyways, encountering two Pure Titans which had caused them to fall behind more. By the time they were finished with them, there was no hope of catching Reiner. And so, with heavy hearts, the two had made their way up to the top of the wall where Mikasa and Armin had been catching their breaths, the Cart Titan a steaming mess behind them.  
Jean had broken the news. Mikasa had sobbed and wailed, fighting in Jean’s arms to go to Eren, in which Connie had replied that  “She didn’t want to see that.”  That had only made her scream louder, clawing at Jean’s hands, begging and pleading. She had cried until her eyes were stinging and raw and her cheeks puffy and red before collapsing to her knees, defeated. Armin had remained standing, face looking gaunt and sallow in the fading light. He said nothing but stared into the distance with bleary and tired-looking eyes.  
Jean had been kneeling next to her, rubbing soothing circles on her shoulder with his thumb, trying to keep both of them grounded to reality when the lightning struck. It had momentarily blinded them, blowing dust into their faces. Jean was the first to react, drawing his guns and leaning out over the edge of the wall, expression hard. If Reiner was back to fuck with them then he was going to get a fuckload of bullets into his eyes.  
What he saw below wasn’t Reiner. Instead a strange Titan was crouching in the square where Eren and Zeke had died.

Dust billowed through the square, turning over itself into a swirling vortex.  
A hand reached up through the dust. It convulsed, slamming down into the ground with enough force to shatter the cobblestones. Cracks raced away from its clawed fingers as it tensed. Raising itself up, a back began to emerge from the smoke. It’s vertebrae were prominent and it’s very skin seemed to be twitching and swirling as if it was alive. Embers drifted around the head, held low and breathing harshly in a guttural wheeze.  
Slowly it rose to its feet. It was hunched over which was only emphasised by its almost absurdly long torso and thin limbs, appearing spider-like through how its sharp bones almost jutted through the skin in an alien manner. With a shiver, an extra two arms, barely muscled and lined with pure bone and crystal dropped away from its chest. There was only three long fingers on each hand, curled like talons and held in a preying mantis pose that connected to the body just underneath the main, heavily-muscled primary arms.  
As it raised its face skyward, the dark, greasy hair that had hung over its face fell away to reveal its features. Its head was balanced on a slightly longer-than-average neck that bent like a vultures, and as its face turned to the sun, everyones blood ran cold.  
A mask of pale cartilage was moulded over its true face, similar to the War Hammer Titan’s. However, this one only covered its face, fading away into the neck. And instead of bars over the mouth, the cartilage was bunched and hard around the mouth into the shape of teeth, the mouth itself extending far back below the eyes. The eyes were similar to the previous War Hammer Titan’s; two large ovals cut into the mask with bars extending down vertically. However, as it exhaled a small burst of steam revealing the second set of teeth behind the first, its eyes glowed a very familiar green.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally just meant to be a descriptive one-shot however the idea ran away with me. Going to add a second part and you'll see why I have the Levi and Hange tags ;)


End file.
